


The Less a Man Knows

by I_am_Best



Series: ;) [4]
Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Gen, This one's a bit more shippy than the others, between seasons 8 and 9
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-19
Updated: 2016-01-19
Packaged: 2018-05-14 22:07:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5760682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_am_Best/pseuds/I_am_Best
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor and the Master go on an adventure. There are sandwiches, mud, and a little bit of danger.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Less a Man Knows

**Author's Note:**

> "Sir, I have been through it from Alpha to Omaha, and I tell you that the less a man knows the bigger the noise he makes and the higher the salary he commands. Heaven knows if I had but been ignorant instead of cultivated, and impudent instead of diffident, I could have made a name for myself in this cold, selfish world." - Mark Twain, ["How I Edited an Agricultural Paper"](http://inthesetimes.com/rural-america/entry/18515/how-i-edited-an-agricultural-paper-once)
> 
> Also I wrote this before season 9, and haven't seen any of the most recent season, though I know some of the characters mentioned make an appearance. So this is pre-Season 9 because I'm too lazy to check and change some of the lines.

"Why does it need a name at all?"

The Master regards him with a carefully neutral mask. She takes a bite of her sandwich. She's perfectly dry but for some mud splashed up her boots. The same can't be said for the Doctor.

He had waited for the Master to contact him this time for their neutral rendezvous, and it took almost a year for her to do so. When he'd arrived on the planetoid she modified for them, still trapped in its little eddy of time, oozing forward and rewinding, she announced they were going exploring (' _you like exploring, right?_ '). It's something she had never bothered to do when she found the place, and something that hadn't even occurred to the Doctor because the Master was always there. He didn't question the sudden offer, just took it as an olive branch for something the Master had done or will do. The calm before the storm.

So they'd set off in a direction they'd never gone, away from the mushroom fields and moths, and ran into a sheet of rainfall that neither advanced nor depleted. They'd huddled under the Master's umbrella until the argument started, the Master idly referring to the name in conversation and the Doctor latching on to how stupid it is. She'd left him to the elements shortly after.

The elements are mildly annoying, which is far worse than if they'd been dangerous. At least with danger comes excitement. With annoying comes, well, annoyance.

He has moth dust smeared most everywhere, and where there is none there's the goop of fungi or oil-rain drops exploding in slow motion on his clothes. The Master, infuriatingly, looks fine. Her umbrella keeps the worst of the shower at bay, and her stance remains as stable as a pylon, despite her three-inch heels and the murky fog obscuring the ground. It's unfair, is what it is, and now she's eating their lunch and the Doctor hasn't had any.

"Well?" the Doctor asks. "Why does it need a name?"

"Everything needs a name, if it's to be worth anything."

"Your name is stupid."

" _Your_ name is stupid," she replies serenely. The Doctor tramps over, wiping oily water from his eyes, until he's mostly under the umbrella with her. The Master has to crane her head back to look at him. "If you don't like Winking Smiley Face, then how about Semi-colon Round Bracket? Doesn't have quite the same ring, though."

"I thought you were being flirty, not christening the place when you put that in your message," the Doctor grumbles, wiping his hands clean on the front of the Master's jacket, which is made of a curiously soft red-blue-gold shining fabric. Her expression metamorphizes into horror. The Doctor pets her jacket a few more times once his hands are mostly clean because it is inordinately soft. The action is absolutely childish, but he isn't the one trying to name a planetoid after an emoticon. That is far more juvenile, the Doctor feels, than flinging literal and figurative mud.

"You bastard! This is pure Eurynome wool. Wars have been started over my jacket." She shoves her umbrella into his hand, and the irony that one of the most unique ships in the universe has been passed over without a care so she could fret over some silly fleece is not lost on the Doctor. But that means the Master's now standing far too close so they're both protected by the silly, tiny parasol. The rain falls slow and thick, actual spheres instead of the traditional droplet shape, and the Doctor stares intently at one particular one as the Master sheds her jacket. She elbows him once or twice shaking off the mud, and he's sure it's intentional, but before he can accuse her of anything the Master reclaims her TARDIS, opens it up, and chucks her jacket into the hole.

"Should I take my skirt off, too, or are you going to act like an adult?" she asks, one hand already on the button at her waist. Her skirt's identical in colour to the jacket, and misty water beads on its surface.

The Doctor shakes his head far too quickly. He has no clue if she intentionally likes making him uncomfortable (probably yes) or if she genuinely wants to be physical (also probably yes). Either way, the Doctor is not ready for that, not right now. He holds his hands up in surrender. "Okay, no more mud. But we aren't calling it any stupid name."

"I made it, I should get to name it," the Master says more to herself than to him, then her hand disappears into the small, floral-print bag hanging from her wrist. "Do you want a sandwich?"

"Yes, if there are any left."

"I made about ten." She made exactly ten. The Master doesn't do 'about' anything, though why she's made ten sandwiches for two people is beyond the Doctor. After taking a bite of the first one offered, the Doctor comforts himself with the fact that he only has to eat five. "That's potted meat and sheivar. I didn't have any green olives."

"Oh," the Doctor says simply and waits until she's not looking to pocket the sandwich. There's no accounting for taste.

The Master loops her arm in his while they walk, deigning to share her umbrella again now that the issue of naming has been dropped. She gives him another sandwich and this one's far more palatable, which is good because the Doctor can't hide it so easily when she's latched to him.

It's nice, walking like this. Not the tidal crash of psychic contact, nor the battle of wits when saving planets from her. Just walking, eating sandwiches. They don't talk, falling back into the familiar quiet of two minds on the same wavelength. They don't need to talk.

The Doctor sighs and frees his arm from her iron grip to drape across her shoulder. The Master's step barely falters before she's altering her own position, one hand around his waist, the other shifting her umbrella to better cover them both. She leans against him and doesn't seem to much mind the mud, now.

This isn't running through red fields as they did when they were young, but they're not children anymore, and those red fields are gone, replaced by hazy, purple-grey plains. If they weren't enemies, the Doctor can easily see them settled in on a curious little world like this, occasionally saving the universe, but mostly having tea and eating disgusting sandwiches. But they are enemies. And friends, and two halves of the same soul, so they can never just co-exist. Death, time, entrophy, harmony, need and want. Like have-always-been's and will-never-be's, something has to give.

The Master yelps and flails, umbrella flying wild, off into the mists. Before the Doctor can even register what's happened, she's gone from under his arm.

He stands there, dumbfounded, arm still at the Master's shoulder height. He lowers it.

"Master?"

Nothing. The Doctor slides one foot forward, then the other, then the ground gives way, turning into a muddy, bumpy slurry down into suffocating blackness. He hits the Master right at her knees, knocking her over after she'd only just managed to right herself.

"Bloody hell, Doctor," she groans from under him. Her body makes a fairly good blockade and the Doctor only skids a little further with her tangled up in his limbs. He tries to disentangle himself.

"Ouch!" -- "Sorry." -- "You're on my hand." -- "Sorry." -- "Wait, I've got ahold of you." -- "Ah! That's not my arm." -- "I know." -- "Please let go." -- "No."

Eventually, he's free enough to slip-slide his way somewhere other than the Master. Suddenly, there's a blinding light from her phone, and the Doctor blinks, dazzled by it. The Master has the torch setting active and, despite the coating of mud, is looking far too pleased with herself. The Doctor's radiating enough heat to steam the rainwater off of his face.

While the Doctor tries to actively wipe the feel of her hands being far too familiar from memory, the Master's already moved on. She crawls her way to a wall and uses it for support, eventually making it to her feet again. Her light tilts up to where they'd come from, high, high above, then around at the deep darkness of a cave system. "This is quite a hole you've dropped us in, my dear."

He joins her, a bit more composed if still dripping mud, and looks up, too. He can actually see the shimmer of time running forwards and backwards in the air. Down here time is still a little soupy, but nothing like it is up top. Mud is sluicing down, climbing back up, an almost completely vertical incline. No way to scale that. "How did you even find that hole, Master? It's all of two feet wide."

"I'm a very good finder. And as I haven't got my TARDIS anymore, the only way to go seems to be forward. Shall we?" The Master spins around to face the dark interior, somehow doesn't fall over, and offers her arm to the Doctor. He takes it with a squelch between them and a sigh, and they step further into the cave. If not that this would be a humiliating way to spring a trap, he'd almost suspect the Master intentionally did this.

* * *

They stop for a proper lunch twenty-three minutes after getting lost. Not after getting started, which had been almost an hour ago, but twenty-three minutes after the Doctor realizes he had no clue where they'd come from and the Master hasn't even tried to show off by reciting their route thus far. Their clothes have begun to dry hard and crusty with mud, but the Master is worse off, her blouse stained through and her hair hanging in thickly coated, crumbly clumps. Unlike the Doctor, she doesn't have a lot of experience getting into messy situations, both literally and figuratively, so comes out the worse for it.

As the Doctor finds somewhere to prop his screwdriver, refusing to use the frankly blinding flash of the Master's phone when he has a perfectly good penlight function, the Master sets out the spread. She produces from her wristlet an entire picnic's worth of supplies, and the Doctor stops in his search to study her features. She doesn't seem bothered by her unkempt appearance, though she looks absolutely silly, leaving grimy fingerprints on pristine porcelain. A grown woman playing in mud and playing house. It's almost endearing.

"This is nice?" he asks hesitantly as he gives up, pockets the screwdriver, and joins her in setting out sandwiches (only six left, now), silverware, and dishware. The room they've chosen to stop in is made of stone black as night, laced through with quartz-like veins that glint in the light. It's also big, echoing, and silent but for the clink of china and metal on rock.

The Master sits back on her heels and regards the cavern, a chafing fuel tin and lighter in hand. "I suppose. I've seen prettier." Unlike the Doctor who'd gladly take an opening to describe new worlds in agonizing, flourishing detail, that's her entire remark.

"I wasn't talking about the cave," the Doctor clarifies. "I meant. I meant this. Just us. Tea and snacks. Exploring. Having a bit of an adventure."

"Falling down holes, getting lost..." She returns her attention to the small burner she's trying to light, but the lighter continues to not cooperate, offering only sparks and muddy hisses. The Doctor aims his screwdriver and the little tin cup bursts into life, offering a homey, orange-blue glow. The Master slides it under her kettle stand. "It is nice to do once in a while, except for the holes, but not all the time forever."

"Oh, no. No, of course not. But would you.... I mean, if you wanted to.... well, we could..." the Doctor trails off. It's been so long since either had met, long enough for any ire between them to simmer down and be replaced by loneliness. Knowing this neutral place couldn't last forever, would eventually be eaten by time and nothingess while they weren't making use of it, wore him down worse in a single year than knowing the Master was out there, plotting. The Doctor hasn't rehearsed this, hasn't even planned to ask, but if the Master is amiable still to the notion, well.

"I can't be your companion, Doctor. Not like your pet humans." At his crestfallen look, she offers him a box of apple slices as consolation. "I would, however, not be opposed to being your co-pilot."

The Doctor chokes.

"No shackles, though. I've reconsidered my stance on both shackles and Gallifrey. I'd rather not visit."

He hadn't been going to bring that up either, is actually surprised the Master did, but the Doctor also hadn't been expecting that response. She seems so casual about its mention, despite what it did to his hearts to find only empty void where the Master had claimed it would be. "About Gallifrey..."

The Master takes the box back and dips an apple slice in caramel she hadn't offered him. "Yes, about Gallifrey. How'd you like post-war Gallifrey, dear?"

"There wasn't anything there. You lied."

"I did no such thing," she says, voice pitching up in indignation. "I thought you figured it out, my little riddle. It wasn't hard, and once I'd been... removed from the picture I thought you'd pop right over, solve all _their_ problems like a good little hero. Make yourself feel better. Weren't you listening when first you asked about it? No, of course not, you never listen to me. You _like_ to feel bad, you mopey, wallowing sack."

He hasn't been given time to defend himself, but the Doctor knows exactly what she's talking about almost before the words leave her mouth, the Master's projecting so hard. The plane. She'd said it's in another dimension, but not lost. Same place, different universe. There and not there and she hadn't lied. "Oh. I am such an idiot."

The Master's back to her Cheshire happiness at the admittance, and he doesn't have the hearts to point out he thought she'd lied because she always lies. There is a precedent.

"I agree. But you're my idiot, so I've learned to cope. Let's not worry about Gallifrey, my dear. They can wait a bit longer." The Master picks up the warm kettle, one hand on the top. "Tea?"

* * *

By the time they've picked their way through an overabundance of food and many, many cups of tea, the Doctor's antsy to move again. Not just because of what he's learned about Gallifrey, but also because he doesn't do calm well. The Master is right when she says they can't do this forever.

He bundles the picnic remains up and shoves them into the Master's bag while she's stretching out her legs, until she swoops in from the shadows and swats him away. Grumbling to herself, the Master takes everything back out and replaces it much more neatly.

"Come on, it doesn't have to be perfect," the Doctor grumbles right back, even as he sits beside her to hand off stuff to put back. "Your bag is nigh infinite."

"No, it doesn't, but there's no reason to not try to be perfect. A philosophy you'd do well to consider adopting, Mr 'I bring the entire chapter's average down because I only do the basest required of me'." The nickname sounded shorter in Gallifreyan.

"That's Mr 'I bring the entire chapter's average down because I only do the basest required of me because Koschei's so smart it doesn't matter that I don't know temporal engineering' to you."

The Master smiles in that way that shows all her teeth and scrunches her nose up, turning her eyes into happy, shiny crescents. It's not a nice smile, nor a pretty one, but it makes the Doctor quirk a small grin in return. He's especially bad at compliments this time around, but sometimes he gets it right.

"I was pretty good, wasn't I? Shame we both wound up almost failing, anyway."

"Nah, if we'd been top of the class, we'd have wound up in politics. On Gallifrey."

"Oh, that would be the worst, Lord President."

"Oh, yeah." The Doctor rubs the back of his head, causing dried mud to flutter around. "I gave that up, though."

The Master stands, and the Doctor stands with her. "For all of time and space," she says, and he can't quite recall why that particular line sounds odd, coming from her. The Doctor ignores it, moves on.

"Exactly. I'll show you enough that you'll never want to rule any backwater planets again. Promise."

"I'm sure you will, Doctor. But first we have to get out of here. Your turn to pick a direction."

The Doctor sets his screwdriver down and gives it a spin. When it stops, he points into the darkness. "That way."

* * *

A single hour doesn't have the chance to pass before the Master's being eaten. By a fungus. And she's yelling words that no Time Lady should ever yell. The Doctor tells her this, just to make sure they're on the same page, because he can't quite believe what's going on. He should, because the Master being in trouble is absolutely nothing new, but she'd been doing so well so far keeping this body in one piece. How had everything gone so wrong, so fast?

A lacework curtain had bloomed when they passed, falling over the Master like a net before drying, whisking her up as it shriveled. Then it had receded again, set the trap anew. A mushroom that hunted. Unexpected in a world that only seemed able to support the tiny, simplistic life on its surface. The Master now dangles out of the fungus's maw, her free arm beating whatever she can reach with her wristlet. Unsurprisingly it isn't swayed by her efforts.

"I don't care what you think ladies should yell, Doctor! I am being eaten! By a fungus! With teeth?" Her angry shouting gives way to confusion as another tendril uncurls, then catches her arm. It's moving at a leisurely pace now that its prey is captured.

"It has teeth?" the Doctor calls up to her.

"I'm fairly certain -- yes. Yes, it's definitely teeth!"

The Doctor waves his arms frantically, trying to trigger whatever the Master had earlier. He catches the lace the next time it blooms, and maneuvers in ways that his back will hate later to keep from being tossed into the mouth next to her. Instead, he's pushed up against the fungus's spongy exterior, and he digs his fingers in for purchase.

"Hello," he says. There's some sort of slime like currant jelly smeared across the Master's face. He doesn't mention it.

"Hello, my dear. Would you be so kind as to help me out?"

The Doctor tries prying the mouth part open, and when that doesn't work, he tries shoving the Master out. First, the arm. Whatever coats it is sticky, but not so much that he can't loosen its hold. He catches her under her now freed arms and pushes her away, mindful of how unsure his own hold is. She comes a little loose before his grip slips.

Then suddenly she's sucked in with a breathless gag as the mouth clamps tight across her chest. Her fingers dig at the mouth, and she's in almost to her throat.

"Master! Hold on!" The Doctor starts at the sudden telepathic spike of fear and almost falls from his precarious position.

"Brilliant advice," she gasps. "Why didn't I --"

She's gone, except for her arms waving like bone worms in ocean currents. The Doctor grabs her hands with both of his own, losing purchase. He topples, hears a yelp of muffled pain. Red-tipped fingers wrap around his own like a vice, and this alone keeps him from plunging back to the ground. A tendril comes out to grasp at the new weight, and the Doctor wrings one hand free to grope for anything that might be useful lurking in the disaster that is his pocket. Thank Rassilon the Master can't see how unorganized his own transcendental storage spaces are, or he'd never hear the end of it.

He comes out with the sandwich, and desperately chucks it.

It sticks, and the tendril slithers back into the beast. The Master's still gripping hard enough to bruise bone, but they're both coated in goo and the Doctor can feel his grip slipping.

Suddenly, she's fallen out. Mostly. The Master lets go of him and he hits the ground with a pained grunt as she spits and wipes at the jelly now coating her entire face. The fungus seems to have given up the ghost in a decidedly dramatic way. Everything drips and hangs and oozes out of it.

"Are you okay?" the Doctor calls up, rubbing his coccyx. He gets hit by a clump of slime in reply.

While the Master composes herself, still hanging half-way out of the thing's mouth, the Doctor figures out how to get back up there. The lacework is down, furling and unfurling still despite the death of its organism, but much less wildly. It makes a passable ladder, and he scales it up to the Master.

"I can't get out," she sputters. Every wipe across her face just smears the stuff around.

The Doctor leans in and shines his screwdriver up into the mouth. The teeth the Master had mentioned are embedded in her skirt. "We're going to have to tear your skirt," he says.

"Good luck with that. This is Eurynome wool, remember?"

"I don't have a comprehensive encyclopedia of all things textile on hand, sorry."

With a belabored sigh, the Master explains, "It's a bit of a misnomer, calling it wool. It's actually a nigh-unbreakable ply of mineral fibers, requires a frankly impressive amount of energy to cut and shape, and we don't have a sun on hand to burn. Try breaking the teeth off instead." She's still gasping between her lecture, so the Doctor doesn't ask her why she thought she needed such a durable skirt, as the answer is likely 'I wanted it' followed by a far too detailed retelling of who she killed to get it, and instead reaches in to try and snap a tooth. His finger slips, and a strip of flesh splits open. With a hiss, he changes to knocking at it with a book he'd found in his pocket. Even Proust proves ineffective, and the Doctor slumps back.

"It just isn't coming off."

"All the blood's rushing to my head. If we can't get it loose, let's just get me loose. I'll get my skirt later." Before he can object or find a different way, the Master's unbuttoned her skirt, just like she'd threatened to before. He can't imagine she thought she'd be following through on her threat in quite this fashion. She slips free on a coating of slime and the Doctor just barely catches her before she breaks her neck on the cavern floor. He pulls her to the lacework and she drapes her arms in the holes, lets them support all of her weight.

When she's ready, the Doctor helps her down. The Master drops into a heap on the floor and stares up at the creature while the Doctor gives her a once-over for any damaged bits. She's got scratches all up her legs and her stockings and underlayers are ruined with blood and goo. "What did you do to it?"

"Just threw some stuff at it. Random things. Can't know which did the trick," he says evasively. The last thing the Doctor wants to tell her was that her sandwich killed it.

She pats his knee fondly. "You have the luck of fools, my dear. And you might've just killed the most complex organism on this rock."

"Yes. Well. Let's get you out of here. You're all scraped up." He pulls the Master to her unsteady feet. If she had looked a mess before, she looks like hell now. The Doctor can't expect her to be any less stunned after being masticated. He chuckles.

"What?"

"You've been _master_ cated."

The Master offers a weak laugh, though she's still fighting her bruised ribcage. It isn't even a good pun, but at least she's smiling at the effort. As she fumbles for a beacon so she can come get her skirt later, she says, "If you tell anyone about this, I'll kill them."

He nods. The Doctor plans to never tell anyone about this, for his own reputation as much as hers. It would be too hard to explain why he didn't let the most evil being in the universe be done in by a random mushroom.

"So. Escape, then."

* * *

Now that they know what to look for, neither gets swooped up into the jaws of some horrid fungus creature again, though they festoon the cavern roofs like colonies of bats. Walk carefully, walk quietly, and they barely even set them off.

"I think this place is a TARDIS," the Master groans as they sit down for a break. She rolls her shoulder and massages the joint. The Doctor's noticed that part, in particular, seems to be giving her some trouble. She doesn't mention it, so he won't either. "How are there so many caves?"

"How big is the planetoid supposed to be?"

"3, 042.3 kilometers across." The Master crumbles some stone thoughtfully between her fingers. "I thought it seemed a little bit light for that size and this rock density, and now I know why."

"You didn't question that earlier? What if it had been worms or something? You know the ones who eat asteroids, and anything on said asteroids?"

"You don't look a gift horse in the mouth, Doctor. This place was already a bit strange with time, what with being on the edge of the universe. Less work I had to do. Besides, I scanned for any sort of advanced life forms. Even before I fiddled with it, it was too inhospitable to most anything."

"Except giant fungi monsters."

The Master shrugs, unconcerned. "The effects aren't as strong this deep down. They must have evolved while we were frolicking about on the surface. I wonder what they eat?"

"Besides Time Ladies? That's a very good question. We need to get moving before we find out. Up you go." The Doctor catches her under her elbow and, ignoring the Master's protests, hefts her to her feet.

She leans heavily on him and they walk slowly like the old, aching Time People they are until the darkness of the cave lit only by their respective devices begins to fade into the welcome gloom of the surface. It's leaking through a narrow crevice, and the Doctor makes the Master shimmy through first after checking for anything but fungi and moths out there.

She's laying face down in the spongy sheets of mushrooms by the time the Doctor joins her, and he's afraid for a moment that she died. A silly fear, as black holes and holy fire and disintegrator rays barely leave a mark; the Master isn't going to be done in by a toadstool. He nudges her over, just in case, and gets a mumbled curse for his effort. Moths descend to eat at her layer of jelly, and she flops her arms trying to shake them off, but makes no further attempt at movement. Leaving her to her melodramatics, the Doctor gets their bearings.

"Oh! The TARDIS is just right there."

"Thank Rassilon." The Master struggles to her feet and shakes off any help the Doctor tries to offer, muttering to herself about needing new idioms. Finding a second wind, she and her army of moths march the half-mile or so to the TARDIS's familiar blue form, and without so much as a by-your-leave from the Doctor, the TARDIS lets her in.

The Doctor moves at a more sedate pace (it was a trying time for him, too, after all. He even has a few moths to show for it as well), and can't find the Master when he finally catches up. He checks in with the TARDIS to make sure she's not up to any mischief. The Doctor's going to have to have a talk with her about boundaries, and whether by 'her' he means the Master or the TARDIS, he's not entirely sure. Both. Both need a talking to.

The Master's claimed a bathroom and settled in like it was her own by the time the Doctor finds her. He knocks at the door, hears a muffled reply. The walls are too thick for conversation.

With some trepidation, the Doctor cracks the door a hair. The rainfall patter of a shower meets him, loud and echoing. "Master?"

"Yes, my dear? Please do come in, you're letting in a draft." The Doctor hears the rattle of a curtain being pulled tight, and peeks in. She's invisible through the opaque material.

"Do you need any medical attention?" he asks as he stands awkwardly in the center of the room. Her clothes lay in a pile of ruin and ruby goo, and several smears of the same goo decorate the counter and shower like a horror set.

"I do, but that's what the medical bay is for. Doctor though you may be, I know you're not much of a medic."

"Yes, well. About the medical bay." He flaps his jacket, trying to dispell some of the steam that swamps from the shower.

"You don't have a medical bay anymore?"

"I have one. Why would I not have one? But I've not stocked it in, oh, centuries. Everything's probably expired. Except the aspirin." His companions always kept him stocked up on that horrid poison, but he understood the aches and pains of adventuring so let them keep their drugs.

"Ah. I see. I just need bandages, then." The Master pokes her head out of the shower, keeping the curtain pulled around. Dark curls are plastered to her make-up-less face. "Would you be so kind, Doctor?"

The Doctor starts when he realizes she's shooing him out. "Oh, oh, yes. Of course. I'll be back. Just. Uh. Right." He excuses himself far too quickly, but she's already pulled her head back in.

He fumbles through bottles and tubes of, as he'd guessed, expired everything for a roll of bandages. Nothing's organized, and he's just making it worse. He checks the time stamps on several creams and pills, chucking those he can't use behind him, until he has a small collection of viable supplies to take back. He hadn't mentioned that the medical bay's own nanogenes are naught but dead bugs with a busted receiver, but he also hadn't needed to. When it comes to upkeep of his ship, it's safe to assume the Doctor hasn't done any.

The Master isn't in the bathroom when he returns, and the side door is cracked open. The Doctor warily pushes it the rest of the way, revealing his own bedroom. Bedroom is a bit of a misnomer, as the bed had gone missing several lives ago, leaving the Doctor to catnap wherever is most convenient. The Master has made herself comfortable in his reading chair, in his night clothes, with his book. She glances up, adjusting the reading glasses (also his) perched on her face, looking for all the world like she belongs there.

"You didn't jettison the medical bay, but you seem to have jettisoned every other bedroom," she offers as explanation. The Doctor knows that's not true, but realizes far later than the TARDIS did that most other rooms left had once belonged to one companion or another, kept because he can't bring himself to remove them. Or he'd upset her in some way. Sometimes it was hard to tell with Sexy. "So I made myself comfy. Hope you don't mind."

"Sorry about the bed. I can find a new one, if you want." The Master shrugs as though she's as unbothered as he is by its lack, and the Doctor can easily imagine her sleeping in chairs and on tables and in discarded boxes. She motions for him to bring his offerings. "I found some other stuff, too. Painkillers, if you need."

"Lovely. I wasn't going to mention it, but someone decided to dislocate my shoulder falling off of a mushroom." She takes the medicine and begins to sort it out.

"That was an accident."

"Most things are with you. Now, if you'd like to help you may stay, but if not you'd best leave. I might make you _uncomfortable_." She sets down the book and stands. The Doctor likes long night clothes, and, on her smaller form, his shirt's almost to her ankles. He wants to help her, but she's right. He's already uncomfortable with just the idea of seeing her in only the one layer, and her hands are reaching for the buttons at her throat.

He excuses himself. The TARDIS could use some repair work.

* * *

The Doctor has no clue what he's doing under the medical bay's control station. He'd gone into the vortex to avoid the interference from the time eddy, and that's about as far as he's gotten so far as actual progress. It's just a bunch of wires and gyroscopes all twisted up in here, and the manual is complete gibberish. Gallifreyan words, but gibberish none the less. He winds up sticky taping everything back sort of how it was and crawls out.

He leaves the mess to find the Master. Maybe if he plays his cards right, she'll have a look and see what can be done. It certainly wouldn't be the first time the Doctor's used her for repair work. Even a bit of a relief, not having to pretend to know what he's doing for the sake of a companion.

The Master isn't in his room when he returns, but he can hear her singing some awful pop song further down the hall. The wardrobe.

She comes out just as he reaches it, and stops only a few inches away from the Doctor.

"Please change," he says.

"No." The Master sidesteps then walks away, adjusting the Nehru jacket she's found and pinned to better flatter her figure. The gloves aren't exactly the same, but her hands are far too small for her old pair anyway. "Where to first?"

"You don't want to find your TARDIS?"

"I know where my TARDIS is, Doctor. It's on Winking Smiley Face. It will be there when we get tired of this. So, where to?"

He lets the stupid, stupid name slide this time, knowing now that's what it'll forever be called. They walk to the main console room. "You're serious. You want to travel with me?"

"We've already made sleeping arrangements. Might as well." She's circling the console now, fingers dancing over the dials and switches.

The Doctor gives a laugh, and her head snaps up just in time to see him swoop in and hug her. They spin and he only loosens his grip but doesn't release her. The Master's hands are on his arms, a look of pleasant confusion on her face.

"All of time and space," he says with a grin he didn't think was possible with this face. Even though she'd accepted before, it hasn't really hit home until now that the Master had been genuine. She wasn't lying. If the Master isn't careful, the Doctor might actually start to trust her.

"Something for my bucket list," she murmurs back, and suddenly the Doctor remembers why it sounds familiar. Osgood. Poor, poor Osgood. But he won't let the Master get the response she wants, won't let her ruin this. He'll change her, make her understand. He hugs her closer.

He'll show her the cosmos.


End file.
